


Images

by Missy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Death, Family, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Nostalgia, Or formation thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia just wants to know what her mother looked like...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Images

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Battle, prompt: information about Padme Amidala

All information, Leia discovers quickly, is heresy when it comes to deposed royalty. The life of Queen Padme Amidala of Naboo has been shuttered and cloistered away in the memory banks of ancient information files, the twenty plus years that have passed between her death and the ascension of her daughter to the Alderaan throne making the path of recompense long and thorny.

It chews at her, in a way the rebellion never did, this dissolution of her mother’s memory. She wonders if her father had a hand in erasing her existence from the record books, blotting out his pain, trying to blot out their children in a likewise way, just to make his life bearable again. 

But she doesn’t give up. And neither does Luke, though his attitude is a tad more hopeful and cheery than Leia’s. Whatever bit of time Leia has to spare is spent upon the reformation of the New Republic or in courtship with Han, but her mind is perpetually focused inward – on the matter of her origin.

They’re on the far-flung planet of Libor in the western part of the galaxy when they find it: an abandoned hall of holographic records. The right documents are discovered under piles of long forgotten organs of report and copied, then Luke spends hours installing them into R2’s memory bank. After a few week’s work they gather in the privacy of his rooms on Tatooine for a viewing.

There she sits, in a hazy stream of blue-white light- their mother on her throne, giving a speech to the galactic senate upon the importance of Naboo’s survival.

“She’s so young,” Leia whispers, and Luke’s hand reaches for hers. It’s the false one, and the chill of remembering spreads through her body.

“There are some other speeches,” Luke says. “An address she made during the Clone Wars.”

Leia blinks away the tears clouding her vision; she can’t allow herself to be weak even with this brother of hers, this mannish boy she barely knows yet who’s shared the most important moments of her life. She nods and he presses a button upon R2’s facefront. 

The older Padme smiles into the camera, this time wearing a less theatrical outfit. “She was beautiful,” Luke breathes, the tips of his fingers brushing the holographic hand of their mother. It flickers when contact is made and he pulls back.

Afterward, he asks her how she feels. “Better, now that I know what she looks like.” She has an image to go to now, to compare herself with, one entirely separate from the images she has of the Organas. “Were you surprised? Was she what you imagined she would be?”

Luke was raised well by his Aunt and Uncle; they were his family and he was happy with them. It’s no surprise that he’s moved but not as moved as his sister. “I wish I could have known her.”

What he says startles Leia and causes her grateful tears to spill forth at last.

“She reminds me of you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This work contains characters from **Disney/Lucasfilm**. The author has no legal claim upon these characters, and this fiction is a work of fannish tribute, from which no money was made.


End file.
